Deputy Carlos Alarcón, head of the opposition bench of the Comunidad Ciudadana Party – the second largest in the Chamber of Deputies – presented an initiative to regulate access to public information and ensure transparency in state management.

 This bill recognizes access to information as a right of all persons and obliges the highest executive authorities to ensure its compliance, without distinctions of any nature. Thus, every citizen will be able to access the information generated, stored and/or recorded by government institutions, which must be governed by the principles of publicity, accessibility, mandatory, representative, effective and free of charge.

 It should be noted that up to now access to public information in Bolivia has not been governed by law but by a Supreme Decree released in 2005, which only applies to the Executive Branch. If enacted, this bill will extend the obligation to cover all institutions from the central level to the autonomous and decentralized, departmental, regional, municipal and indigenous native peasant levels.